What Is Anger, and Why Should We Care?

A contemporary philosopher to read today Martha Nussbaum, lectured on “What Is Anger, and Why Should We Care?”,

This is an interesting subject and not one, I would think, everyone would agree upon.

Nussbaum writes

“Although everyone is familiar with the damage anger can do in both personal and public life, people tend to think that it is necessary for the pursuit of justice. People who don’t get angry when they are wronged seem weird to many people, lacking spine and self-respect. And isn’t it servile not to react with anger to great injustice, whether toward oneself or toward others”?

It takes a good deal of self control to tame anger, especially if one is the subject of injustice. Are you a person who would pursue relentlessly the path of “don’t get angry get even” or do you have the ability to rise above your anger and think revenge is a waste of time.

Is anger really such a negative emotion? I tend to think it is necessary for our wellbeing and can be a motivating force if directed in a positive way.

Emplain this negative emotion idea a bit more.

its wondering if the pic in your sig is satire or an annoyance. Nobody likes it for a second, or even a glance. That is my negativity.

anger is a hot coal that you pick up to throw at your enemy. You get burned first.

I have lost the content of my post. My mouse went berserk. Will try to retrieve it.

Alan watts said this, not me. If you don’t respond you condone anger.

Anger exists naturally just under my skin, probably the quickest emotion I have access to. I didn’t know why till I was able to trace the seat of my personality type in the brain, the indirect route of the basal ganglia, then it made more sense.

It can be remarkably healthy at times to suppress your anger, it can preserve your life and limb in many situations, or a job, or a relationship. That’s what we do at a fundamental level, in terms of brain functions you and I, we suppress and maintain control. Anger in this relation makes a lot of sense, it allows us to choose or not to proceed on impulse. All too often when you find in history a coup takes place in a highly corrupt state, it is by a close and trusted acquaintance, the very one they thought beyond all doubt they can trust. They repressed their hatred and disgust, carried on, cut their throat at the opportune moment. Merely going with the flow of emotions might not matter if your in a simple profession, but our people tend to have a knack of making themselves indispensable to society over the years. I wouldn’t advocate a free flowing of emotions for such a person. You gotta be careful in a nest of vipers.

Now, in Stoicism, you can take a variety of approaches to anger. The simple approaches is self analysis, why are you angry, and is it even wise or necessary to your well being in the long run? By keeping a steady, pattered living, over time you adjust to your lifestyle, and find simple things, hardest to lose even in poverty or tragedy, satisfying. Contentment in general is preferable to anger.

You can also do simple counting exercises whenever anger strikes. As we age, the impulse to anger diminishes. I recommend paying close attention to your anger, even if you gotta wisely suppress it, study it closely and don’t alienate yourself from it. It is a fundamental aspect of you. You can be angry without bring cruel, or prone to shortsighted, impulsive actions. The lord gave you two loafs of brain, a left and a right, you can handle at least two different train of thoughts at a time. Just because anger might be a natural reaction by no means mean your limited to whatever clever, or not so clever ideas are conjured up by that thought process. There us a dialectic involved in all things.

Let me say this, anger is natural but it has a bad reputation. Unresolved anger can become toxic and this is where the word ‘negative’ can be connected to this emotion.

To suppress feelings of anger, I believe, is not a healthy option, but it must also be acknowledged that some people need to be protected from their own anger.

I would have to play a lot of people if I took your advice. A lot of people.

TF wrote:

Indeed.

What do you mean…play?

Slay

My spell checker… I’ve seen it change who sentences on me.

Anger is a self-defense strategy, usually triggered by the perception of an overwhelming threat and often caused by one’s own distorted view of reality; insecurities, self-judgements, phobias, embarrassment,…

Anger is considered negative because it is the blind extreme of aggression. Anger is not merely an aggressive action, but specifically a blind, hate motivated aggression.

In the modern West, women are encouraged to be very willing to express anger so as to do more damage to society and any men standing around at the time. Hatred is encouraged and anger is merely an expression of it. They are given the notion, subliminally, that anger displays strength, when in fact, it displays the exact opposite.

Shut the fuck up, mr anger is a un-healthy holding feeling that all people feel. You love it. You love it in all forms, irritation, frustration, aggregation. You suppress it to a point, until you recognize it in others then you unleash your own variety, just to feel superior to others. So you spark it, and play peacekeeper, then go dominant.

I can see why your so frustrated with your love life Nano.

You have no idea. I’m settled. Gonna rock it to the wheels fall off. So eat shit, Ferguson.

People who take this approach would rarely display violent outbursts.

Temper is also a mechanism for communication in infants and young children, to convey a need or want.

Do you think anger/temper is a learned behaviour?

We have to learn to suppress it at times as you have written.

We may also learn the opposite from careless parents.

It’s discontent at what should or shouldn’t be, un-biased by what is.

Most certainly is not a learned behavior. First time I remember uncontrolled anger, I was traveling from Beale Air force Base to Marysville, California as a small child in the back, and saw in the irrigation ditches in the farm land a little fat girl my age jumping up and down with her arms flapping as her parents hosed her. I was enraged wanted to kill her for looking so stupid.

The anger is natural. What came next, questioning myself as to why, was natural as well, but some people can go a lifetime without developing that further capacity.

The initial angry surge in largely unavoidable. Bewilderment and seething will naturally result, the ability to control, smother, suppress or reason it doesn’t override it’s Genesis.

Remember the final episode of Battlestar Galactica when he choked the fuck out of that bitch? You can’t really suppress that reaction. Stoicism for the most part doesn’t claim (a few do, they aren’t too smart or honest) you can immediately control such a action. Most legal systems separate crimes of passion, oftentimes completely understandable, however otherwise horrible, from premeditated killings. We all get why the loving husband entering into the bedroom, seeing his wife with their neighbor in bed, might go crazy on them. Is it a get out of jail free card? Almost never not, but we all totally get that shit none the less.

Anger needs an outlet, having a go at Turd is mine which doesn’t faze him for he’s a waste material anyway, so all is right in the world. Do I need to trash him more often for his trash talking judgments of pretty much everyone else? He merits my anger and theirs since his unhappiness and dissatisfaction always surfaces in his philosophical trolling? Protective feelings have developed for other members who he maligns with regularity. Am I too angry or is this natural in regards to Turd?